Like Bees and Butterflies
by Gray Wings
Summary: A short encounter. Kusuriuri-Oneself


Click-clack.

Click-clack.

Click—a gleam in the distance, the fragrance of honey.

Clack.

The box slips from his shoulders and sinks into the moist earth, heavy with more than the material, carrying more than the real. He steps away, leaves it in a nest of soft soil and golden-blood leaves.

Click-clack his sandals go, click-clack. A groove of trees lies down the gentle hill he had been hereto scaling, evergreens mingled with the quickly-stripping branches of their slumbering brothers. A blue flicker catches his gaze and he smiles, a bit sharp, a bit indulgent, as a butterfly hovers by him – light as the wind itself. It scales the currents, thin wings catching the fading light in fragments of purple and indigo and black.

The trees are few – seven or eight, clustered together as if seeking warmth. A little clearing had formed between their sturdy bodies; he enters, kimono dragging across bristly bark.

"Hello," he says, painted lips lifting in a grin.

She does not greet him back, but her eyes cover his body. Heavy powder drowns her face, makes the red of her lips glow; like sap, seeping out of an open wound in dark wood. Her eyebrows are shaved clean off and when she finally deigns to speak, he sees her teeth had been blackened.

"Leave; I do not wait for you."

"And who do you wait for, Lady?" he bows his head, kneels in a most respectful manner. She hums – a sweet, arrogant little gesture. Nonetheless, she talks,

"Know your place. Who are you to question me?"

"Just a medicine-man." Another butterfly, this one cream pink and gold, lands on his shoulder, "May I be of service?"

"Service?" she glares at him, long black hair not disturbing a single leaf as it drags against the ground, "And what service do you offer me?"

A green butterfly lands on his lap; a black one in his hair. The ends of his lips twist again, straining against—"One that involves travel."—a fiendish grin.

"Travel?" her pretty lips bunch in displeasure, "How presumptuous! Who told you I am to travel? If you must know, I await my husband; he is due any minute now. You better take your 'service' and go, if you value your head!"

There are butterflies on his head, along his arms, in his kimono – a colorful circle of wings and twitching antennas about his seated form. They buzz and twirl, excited; the smell of honey drips from the air.

"Oh?" a pale hand extends, disturbing half a dozen tiny forms. He holds her gaze, his fingers falling atop a pile of crushed leaves, "I would like to meet him."

The ofuda slips from between his fingers and atop the gold-covered earth, blank. Suddenly, a wail of wind tears through the leaves, lifts the woman's hair and twists it around her face, into her eyes and mouth. She squeals unhappily and quickly pulls at her head, dark eyes seeking the annoying man as soon as her gaze is free—there he is! There, looking at her with those smug, intolerable eyes, his blue-nailed hand resting atop—

Resting atop—

She scream screams _screams_ until blood wells up from her mouth, her skin where her nails have bitten in. A head. _His_ head, her husband's head, her dear's head, a mangled heap of bone and skin and hair—

The buzzing intensifies, deafens the wind and her voice. The man's mouth opens to reveal sharp, glinting fangs as the hundreds of newly-formed bees burst from their gentle hosts' backs. Dark red and black, they hate him, hate him and _will_ kill him – he slams another ofuda against a tree that is not there, three more. The fifth one he leaves on his palm to complete the circle, to ground the power. Two fingers against blue lips he murmurs the hymn his Other whispers to him, deaf to her screams, to the buzzing of the hungry monsters around him.

_You killed him! It wasn't me! Not me, not me, why did you I kill him why did he die why is he me let me no I don't won't _can't_ leave nonono—_

The bees fall upon him like a cloud of blood, blown against each other by wind and leaves and magic. For a moment all is bright and quiet and full and dark, and then – stop.

Click-clack.

Click-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack.

The sun is most deceitful today; even at the top of the hill, directly under its rays, the ground is cold and hard.

He smiles most kindly at the two rugged, bearded men that jump away from his coffer, sweaty and breathless from trying to haul the sturdy wood away, hoping to pawn its contents. It had not moved an inch; in fact, the edges had sunk even deeper into the ground. "Well met, sirs," the medicine-man says, walking past them and grabbing for one of the knotted ropes that are the chest's straps. One of the men twirls a sharp knife in one hand, but the blade is soon dropped – forgotten in astonishment at seeing the wiry, dainty-looking peddler in his embodied kimono and silks sling the monstrous box onto his back with a flick of his wrist.

"Please excuse me," the medicine-man smiles, eyes a most brilliant shade of blue, "I must be leaving, if I am to make it to town by sunset."

He makes his way back down the hill at a slow, unhurried gait. At the bottom he pauses, turns his head to stare at something off the path. The two men squint, trying to gauge at what he is looking; there is nothing but dead grass for as far as the eye can see.

The man smiles, tips his head to look at the sun then sets his gaze back on the road ahead. "Do not stay out too late," he calls over a shoulder, voice startling in its clearness, "There is no knowing what will come out to play at night."

With that he leaves them, one rickety step at a time.

Click-clack. Click-clack.


End file.
